Sunday, April 26, 2015

On Friday my daughter arrived for her Dad's birthday with a wonderful present for me.

A bag full of old newspaper. The newspaper was found when she had some windows replaced and is dated May 2, 1922. It was a copy of "The Star" a tabloid London evening Newspaper which just happens to be the evening sister paper of the News Chronicle where I worked when I first came down from the north, unfortunately it closed a few months after I arrived.
I worked in the newspaper library. Every morning the Librarian would mark the articles to be cut from all the newspapers and then in the afternoon these were filed in manilla envelopes. The men did the news and the girls did the people, we each had a section of the alphabet, can't remember mine exactly but I know I had the P's as I remember filing Judge Pennycuik(because of the unusual name) I hated the Daily Telegraph because it use to continue it's stories onto another page, double cutting.
So a few memories in the bag. Breakfast in the Black and White Milk Bar on a Saturday morning. Felt very sophisticated and exciting.

This image from Getty Images ( breach of copyright intended) is a good few years earlier but it hadn't changed much.

I have just started to try and straighten the pieces as best I can, very careful ironing, it is very brittle of course and could take a while but today has unearthed a few treasures. Some intriguing headlines

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

another great day at Sew Not Strawberry Jam we arrived to find the workroom had been adorned with bunting by Jessie and she was already sitting stitching as she greeted everyone.

So much to look at, Jessie is a very generous tutor both in materials and ideas. The theme of the day was to make a journal, we glued and stitched, talked and laughed and feasted on the delicious lunch, biscuits and cake provided by Sam of SNSJ, another generous lady.

These were some of the "toys" we had to play with, I lusted over the rubber stamps of pages from an old French children's book whcih Jessie had found. These are our books, mine is the one on the right.

Today was another of the un-seasonally warm days so we made the most of it, just in case this is summer. I sat and stitched in an effort to try and remember some of the things Jessie showed us.

(I think my scanner need cleaning)

We decided the magic words of the day were "and then", a little different from "what if" but just as exciting.A thing of wonder that all my favourite tutors teach hand sewing with vintage fabrics and yet they all have such individual character. I am looking forward to the book Jessie is bringing out in August and hope to re-visit her shop in the Columbia Road .

I could go to SNSJ without taking a few photographs of the Shepherd's Hut (before the sun came out)

the Studio

and the geese.

Off to see A Little Chaos tomorrow, trying to pack things in as DH is due to have a rather nasty operation in a couple of weeks.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

and we all enjoyed it. The film was good but for me the outdating thing was the costumes. A clever mix of the the 1950's (so in vogue) and the past. Stunning, I wanted to be able to freeze frame and examine.

Seriously, grab a little girl (or two big girls) who are little inside and go and enjoy. Disney really appreciates that little girls like to "twirl" in a dress.

Follow the film, if you can, with a laughter filled lunch in the sunshine and there you are.....the perfect day. Thanks girls.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

This weekend was our long awaited exhibition which was held in the Lecture room of a local garden centre, (unfortunately for my bank balance my favourite garden centre Coolings but that is another story)

Here is a flavour,

We had examples from group challenges like "seed packets" (executed before we knew we were exhibiting at a garden centre)

and jigsaw pieces with the theme "Spring"

Me and my friends had decorated vintage napkins which we turned into boxes here we have "
a box of boxes","a seed box" and "a red box"

There is also my friends heart which I should have done more in close up.
One of our most successful exhibits was the table of teddies (and a dog)

It never fails to amaze me how you can start with the same thing, the bare bear in the middle, and each individual creates something unique.
My Seth Apter piece became the centre piece of our table devoted to books and fairy stories.

It is now taking centre stage in my hall way.
On Saturday we played hookey especially to go to the Renegade Craft Fair in the Truman Brewery in east London. I am sorry to say it was quite a disappointment. I don't know what they are like in New York, Los Angeles and the other venues the advertise but we found the London version, instead of being far out and innovative, to be no more exciting than the usual craft market in Old Spitalfields. Such a shame. The most exciting part of the day was finding this glorious graffiti wall.

The weather here is very warm for April which is very welcome and we have spent the last two days putting our little patch of garden to rights. Today under the bird feeder I found this strange black growth. It was very difficult to photograph but is I say it resembled fine black wire wool it might give you some idea. It was quite metallic in character.

Sunday, April 05, 2015

for months now. Way back in September 2013 I treated myself to two stencils designed by Seth Apter and produced by Stencil Girl.

I was really pleased with them and I used them on my gelli plate. The TIME one spoke to me and the more I looked at it the more I had a picture in my mind of Times Square in New York with all the theatre and advertising lights.

How replicate that? ......total madness.......in beads.

It has taken me nearly a year to complete, putting it away when I grew tired of picking beads out of the sofa, the carpet and other places. When we had cats I used to blame them for the fact that beads spread everywhere but no....it's me.

So here it is, I am pleased to say that Seth likes it and is happy for me to exhibit it.

and a close up

I have an idea to use the first stencil to decorate the lid of a box to hold all my UFO's but I think I will probably chose another medium rather than beads.